Recently we have seen a few instances of children using their mobile phones on school grounds and this post is in response to that. Mobile phones should be switched off and put in school bags before entering through the school gate and should not be turned on until after your child has left through the gate at the end of the day.

Studies

There have been a lot of studies done which look at the effect of too much screen time has on developing brains and none of them conclude it is a good thing. Forbes, The Centre for Parenting Education and The Guardian have all published articles on this topic and each come to the same conclusion – screen time, although incredibly beneficial in context, should be limited.

Apps

To help with this here are some links for apps that can help you monitor and control how much time your child spends on their phone or tablet. Education App Store, Digital Trends and PCMag all have lists of apps which you can purchase or install to help keep your child safe when using technology.

As we settle into the routine of a new year back at school, it is important to reacquaint ourselves with good internet practise. In school we use our E-safety mascot Ernie to help us remember some important online safety rules.

E-safety first – keeping ourselves, our friends, our siblings and children safe online has to be at the forefront of our minds.

Remember to be nice – the famous quote “be the change you want to see” is very applicable here. People learn by imitation and if we remember to be nice, we will have a positive impact.

Never share personal information – we work a lot with the children to reinforce this idea. Names, addresses, school, phone numbers or any identifiable pieces of information should be kept private. This also applies to social media, especially when sharing photos.

Inform an adult– for the children if anything happens that makes them unsure or uncomfortable, they should always tell an adult. For the adults, you should ensure that the children know it is ok to approach you regardless of what has happened.

Everyone can be blocked – find out how to block and report people on whatever sites and games you are using and understand that you don’t have to put up with any negative comments.

Throughout the year we will be having regular e-safety lessons to make sure the profile of e-safety is maintained at a high standard throughout Ashleigh.

Welcome to the Ashleigh E-safety Blog. For our first post we thought we’d introduce you to someone very special. We ran a school wide competition to create our very own e-safety mascot. We had a lot of wonderful entries and it was very difficult to chose a winner, so congratulations to Lucy in Elm class. The winning entry was chosen because of the lovely design and the set of acrostic rules that went with the mascot. Let us introduce you to Ernie the E-safety Robot.

E-safety first

Remember to be nice

Never share personal information

Inform an adult

Everyone can be blocked

This week we are looking at e-safety, especially at a set of rules that will keep us safe when using electronic equipment. Please talk together at home about safe internet usage and about monitoring screen time. Feel free to leave comments or questions below and we will try to address them.